TESS Payments
“Can a QCB-licensed payment facilitator become the default cashless payment infrastructure layer for businesses across Qatar?”
Founded2016
HQQatar
Total raised$140K
IndustryInfrastructure / Payments
The story
Founded in 2016 as a 100% Qatari-owned payment processor, TESS Payments positioned itself as Qatar's primary independent payment gateway operator. It secured a QCB PSP license and became a registered Payment Facilitator under Visa, Mastercard, and NAPS, enabling it to serve banks, other PSPs, and 300+ merchants directly. The company's embedded-finance angle is primarily as an infrastructure provider — offering white-label gateway capabilities, API-based payment acceptance, and tokenisation to businesses across Qatar aiming to go cashless.
Last 12 months
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Product timeline
2016
TESS Payments founded as a 100% Qatari-owned payment processing and merchant acquiring company.· pivot
Regulated entities
2
regulatory licences held by TESS Payments
Licence types, jurisdictions and registered entities are in the Embedded Finance Index report.
The stack
1 layer disclosed in TESS Payments’s embedded-finance stack
Payments / PSP
TESS Payments (self-operated)
Accounting gap: none